Tuesday, March 20, 2007

IF I AM YOUR SOCKRET PAL, DO NOT READ THIS POST!!!

This means you, Jody! I will be posting a picture of one of your finished socks, so unless you don't like to be surprised, quit reading now.

But first, just so we don't have a situation where a spoiler is unavoidable, I'm going to try to fill up enough space so that the rest of you will have to scroll down to see any Sockret sock pictures...

I went yarn shopping last night. I need more yarn like I need a root canal (although since I haven't been to the dentist in way too long, I shouldn't say that...), but I had a couple of $25 coupons from the Yarn Garden that I felt the need to use. Here is what I ended up with:

A pinky-pink skein of Tofutsies (I am totally in love with this yarn after getting it from my Sockret Pal), some Louet Euroflax which I'm going to use to make a Passport Pouch since the original was given away, and some amazing Alchemy bamboo. I also picked up a gallon of Malabrigo, which is one of my new favorite yarns (it is SO soft - it's like knitting with a chinchilla). I'm planning a sweater with this one - in all my free time.

I also got yet another tape measure. I go through like one a month - I swear I'm going to clean the house someday and find a stash of 50 of them somewhere. But right now I can't find a single one (not even under the couch), and a girl's gotta have a tape measure! I keep saying I'm going to have one that's designated never to leave my knitting notions bag, but the boy now knows how to open zippers so unless I keep it permanently on a high shelf, that rule's shot to heck.

We had a wonderful, beautiful weekend that got everyone ready for summer. I'm busily obsessing about the garden. We planted two columnar apple trees (which is this really funky variety that stays really small, and the apples grow right from the trunk instead of on branches - freaky!) and a peach that's supposed to do well in the rainy NW. We'll see! My friend Chris is a master gardener and she thought I was insane to try to grow a peach tree here, but I like to experiment, so we'll see what happens.

We're also getting ready to become chicken central. Awhile back I posted about getting an Eglu, but that idea was nixed by the hubby who wants us to build our own coop. I am always skeptical about any project that requires us to build something, but fortunately my chicken-owning friend Brittney and her hubby are also coop-building this spring. We're going to have a couple of coop-building days which are scheduled on the calendar, so I'm totally looking forward to it now. Brittney's the kind of person who gets things done, so I'm confident that coops will actually happen (where I would NOT be at all confident if we were being left to our own devices).

The chickens are arriving next week, and I can not wait. I ordered us an Amerucana (these are the Easter Egg chickens that lay blue-green eggs), a Barred Plymouth Rock (the kind of chickens my grandma had when I was a kid), and a Rhode Island Red. I really wanted to get a Silkie Bantam, but they're only available straight-run (as in, non-sexed), and with my luck I'd end up with a rooster and have to make dinner out of it! I'd rather stick to eggs, thank you very much!

Our Owen is all boy, but he loves stomping around the house in his sister's tap shoes. Bill keeps asking me if we need to worry...

I think our little Gregory Hines is quite cute! And really, we're just joking - we'd be just as happy with a tap-dancing, dress-wearing, musical-singing Owen as we would a football-playing, frat-joining, strip-club-hopping one. Okay, I'd actually much prefer the first one! My theory, though, is that he only likes them because he can make such a racket. He's way too young to be having gender identity issues!

Okay, I think we're down far enough that I can show you some socks. Here it is - a Pomatomus sock made out of Mama-E's C*eye*ber Fiber in the Faded Glory colorway. Isn't it pretty?

Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern:

Love the pattern, love the yarn, can't wait to finish the other one and get them in the mail so poor Jody doesn't think I totally flaked out on her! I would like to have them for myself, but fortunately Jody's feet are a tad bit bigger so they don't fit me anyway. That makes it much easier to send them off!

They are beautiful!! I love the socks. Also great yarn haul. I've really been wanting to actually see some malibrigo in person. Perhaps in April. :) Ben puts on my makeup with me and I'm not worried. Perhaps I should be....

So, how do you make sure you get a female chicken? We had one a couple of years ago that we got as a chick, and it (fortunately) turned out to be female. We kept her as a pet, and she was wonderful--she acted just like a little dog, except she laid an egg every day and kept the vegetable garden free of bugs. One day, she went to visit the neighbors, and their dogs got her. Now my husband wants another chicken, but I can't figure out how to get a female chick (and there is no way I need a rooster crowing at dawn next to my bedroom window!). Any tips? (If so, you can leave a comment on my blog. Thanks!)

$25 coupons... sounds wonderful! Looks like you did good at the yarn shop, have fun with all that!The socks look fabulous, what a beautiful yarn.Have fun with the chickens, I'm hoping to get some here some day...Happy knitting,aliwww.skeinsherway.com

About Me

Welcome to the wild & wooly world of knitwear designer Chrissy Gardiner. I'm a mom of two who spends as much time as possible knitting and designing knitting patterns. I have been published in various books and magazines as well as printing my own pattern line, Gardiner Yarn Works. I published my first book, Toe-Up!, in the summer of 2009. It's about socks, of course!